


5+

by sakesushimaki



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: 122 Gap Filler, Angst, Childhood, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-15
Updated: 2011-10-15
Packaged: 2017-10-24 15:57:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/265320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakesushimaki/pseuds/sakesushimaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brian's list is never done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	5+

Brian started the first list a week before his twelfth birthday.

It was going to be an _inventory_ list — something that could come in handy one day when he needed references; something that would save him from forgetting — something that would last.

Mom always made lists and stuck them to the refrigerator. She had to keep them clean and clear so she wouldn’t forget anything. That’s why the fridge door couldn’t be cluttered with Brian’s or Claire’s drawings.

Brian knew there had to be a title, so he scribbled _Things I Like to Do_ on top of the sheet.

He came up with a grading system to catalogue each pastime with a number from 1 to 5, 5 being awarded to the things he enjoyed the most.

Going on field trips with his class was—for example—a solid 3. Watching _The Incredible Hulk_ on TV was a 4. Driving his bike through the small puddles accumulated in the bumps of the asphalt a 5.

His second list Brian started on the exact day he turned twelve.

He couldn’t come up with a fitting title right then, but he knew that list no. 2 would be for cataloguing subcategories of a certain feeling. It was a list just like the other one — he could even use the same grading system.

Sitting on his bed that night in April, with the little reading light tapped to his notepad, Brian began filling the lines.

Slipping on the grit and landing on his knees — 1. Claire snorting and calling him _pathetic_ no matter what he did was graded a 2. Dad hitting him when he came home smelling like dirt and something else, something stinging, was a 4. Mom leaning against the kitchen counter, crying and wishing she’d never had kids, a 5.

As Brian got older, he started growing uneasy about his scribbled logs. By fourteen, he had taken to cataloguing in his mind only. Lists no. 1 and 2 seemed safer there somehow.

Once he graduated from college, found a job and moved into his own place, Brian had had a pretty decent inventory. Barely anything needed to be added to either list for quite a while.

Only several years later—the big three-o already looming over him—did he start adding little things again. Specifically, he was adding to the _Things I Like to Do_ list. They were little things, _tiny_ , that he didn’t even mean to add. Yet, he found himself mentally grading them with solid 4’s, sometimes almost 5’s.

List no. 1 seemed to fill disconcertingly quickly all of the sudden.

After spending a noticeable amount of time on _not_ pondering these new developments, though, Brian decided that if he just watched out, there was no danger. If he just watched out, didn’t let himself be fooled into anything, it would all be okay.

He didn’t expect having to deal with the other list again, too.

However, it was only days after he’d turned thirty, when the universe made it clear that he was not done with list no. 2.

With his head leaning against cold tile and his body cramped into the confines of a plastic chair, the peculiar wetness on his face washed up the ruled white sheet in his mind.

Feeling damp, tainted fabric around his neck, Brian knew he would have to extend his grading scale.


End file.
